Mootwo:Shut down the major hubs and you've killed the internet. Last I checked there were like 8 major hubs in the U.S.

By "major hubs", are you referring to public exchanges? Most backbone interconnectivity is done with peering points, I do believe. I work for a major backbone, and we some peering in pretty much all of our pops, not just in "major hubs".

Ok, now that I have your attention, I'm going to post the same thing I posted on /. about this.

1. The original legislation was proposed back in April and hasn't gone anywhere. At this point I think it's just lacking supporters.

2. From the actual Bill:(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network;

(5) shall direct the periodic mapping of Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks, and shall develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of the mapping process;

(6) may order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security"....

This meaning that basically any government related network such as national power grids, water plants. (Things that don't need to be accessible from the internet to begin with) will be under the control of the president during a time of an emergency.

This doesn't affect the (Internet) as a whole. The internet is not a central computer that sits in a government warehouse with an On/Off button. The internet is a protocol, not an object. Basically it is the collection of various servers and networking devices from all over the world.

You simple can't just "Turn it off" which is what many people are fearing.

So in short, if we the united states was under some kind of Cyber attack, the President could not turn off (Slashdot.org, digg.com, weather.com) but they could control the networks of those that are government related.

I still haven't read through the entire bill yet, but that seems to be the basic summary.

Christ you Farkers are dumb. I saw a handful of posts where someone actually bothered to find out what the bill was all about before commenting. The rest of you are just moronic knee-jerk reaction jaackoffs.

Drakin020:Ok, now that I have your attention, I'm going to post the same thing I posted on /. about this.

1. The original legislation was proposed back in April and hasn't gone anywhere. At this point I think it's just lacking supporters.

2. From the actual Bill:

(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network;

(5) shall direct the periodic mapping of Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks, and shall develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of the mapping process;

(6) may order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security"....

This meaning that basically any government related network such as national power grids, water plants. (Things that don't need to be accessible from the internet to begin with) will be under the control of the president during a time of an emergency.

This doesn't affect the (Internet) as a whole. The internet is not a central computer that sits in a government warehouse with an On/Off button. The internet is a protocol, not an object. Basically it is the collection of various servers and networking devices from all over the world.

You simple can't just "Turn it off" which is what many people are fearing.

So in short, if we the united states was under some kind of Cyber attack, the President could not turn off (Slashdot.org, digg.com, weather.com) but they could control the networks of those that are government related.

I still haven't read through the entire bill yet, but that seems to be the basic summary.

that would be some much needed good news. oh sheeet, i just sided with Big Business. somebody shoot me!

its a really bad idea because it inserts a single point of failure into a system designed for redundancy by the DOD for use in time of War. want security? then secure the systems that are connected to the Internet. leave the frickin' Internet open and Free. i'm running a Linux linksys router firewall and a Linux box, so security is not a concern of mine.

bemis23:Christ you Farkers are dumb. I saw a handful of posts where someone actually bothered to find out what the bill was all about before commenting. The rest of you are just moronic knee-jerk reaction jaackoffs.

Hello, welcome to the internets. You must be new here. Would you like the affections of a "woman" to get you started, or would you prefer to just bring your super-serious attitude from real life to the digital world in all its boring glory?

bemis23:Christ you Farkers are dumb. I saw a handful of posts where someone actually bothered to find out what the bill was all about before commenting. The rest of you are just moronic knee-jerk reaction jaackoffs.

El Chode:bemis23: Christ you Farkers are dumb. I saw a handful of posts where someone actually bothered to find out what the bill was all about before commenting. The rest of you are just moronic knee-jerk reaction jaackoffs.

Hello, welcome to the internets. You must be new here. Would you like the affections of a "woman" to get you started, or would you prefer to just bring your super-serious attitude from real life to the digital world in all its boring glory?

I read that as boning glory for some reason. Its Friday... Hey, here comes the beer cart!

I don't think Congress understands how badly American businesses would be farked over if the entire Internet were down for even a day. It's not just online retailers like Amazon and eBay, who would lose millions, but every business in the country would be unable to send or receive e-mail, a now predominant form of communication.

Imagine how many important documents would be missed, how many invoices and payments would be delayed, how many crucial project deadlines would be unmet. I can see millions of business people going apeshiat crazy if the gov't shut the Internet down.

Drakin020:This meaning that basically any government related network such as national power grids, water plants. (Things that don't need to be accessible from the internet to begin with) will be under the control of the president during a time of an emergency.

Of course, this also depends on what they define as "critical infrastructure".

Is it out of the question for the government to define internet backbone providers, telephone infrastructure, etc. as "critical infrastructure", and then require that operators of such infrastructure obey certain legal requirements?

While the bill may or may not be a huge deal now, remember that laws always seem to suffer from "function creep" and that this law, like others, could be misused by a future government with nefarious motives.

Some Texan:This will never happen. By doing that, at the very least you would be censoring free speech. It would be like stopping all television broadcasts or newspaper deliveries. Sure, he may have the power, but it will never be wielded.

letstakeawalk:Some Texan: This will never happen. By doing that, at the very least you would be censoring free speech. It would be like stopping all television broadcasts or newspaper deliveries. Sure, he may have the power, but it will never be wielded.

Epsilon:I don't think Congress understands how badly American businesses would be farked over if the entire Internet were down for even a day. It's not just online retailers like Amazon and eBay, who would lose millions, but every business in the country would be unable to send or receive e-mail, a now predominant form of communication.

Imagine how many important documents would be missed, how many invoices and payments would be delayed, how many crucial project deadlines would be unmet. I can see millions of business people going apeshiat crazy if the gov't shut the Internet down.

Sounds like a nice day off, actually. Then again, I often fantasize about what would happen if there were a huge electromagnetic pulse thing go off and all our toys were turned to worthless ruble. I think it would make for a great movie...

FTFA - The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

This reminds me of what happened to the phones on 9/11. I was calling some people (maybe to calm myself down?) and I tried getting a hold of friends in England. I forget exactly what the automated message said, but the gist was transatlantic calls were not happening. I assume this was done to keep any bad guys on the ground from easily contacting someone outside the country.

Dunno if the proposed bill in TFA includes this kind of emergency shut down (only skimmed the article), but it wouldn't surprise me.

letstakeawalk:Some Texan: This will never happen. By doing that, at the very least you would be censoring free speech. It would be like stopping all television broadcasts or newspaper deliveries. Sure, he may have the power, but it will never be wielded.

Never?

Ask this guy:

He sure didn't have a problem shutting down newspapers.

Yeah he also invaded his own country and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths to preserve an ideal that half the country didn't subscribe to. Real yardstick of freedom, that one.

/probably equally as hard as shutting down the web//how do you shut down a series of tubes anyway?

You forget...who provides 99.9% of our access to the internet? Corporations such as AT&T, Verizon, and AOL. How does the government shut it down? Order the companies to cut off access to all their customers and employees.

It's that simple to cut off everyone but the professional cracker...

And that's why the law is such a joke - its intent is to protect against the professional, but at most it will only slow down the determined attacker while destroying the civil liberties of millions.

CaesarSneezy:letstakeawalk: Some Texan: This will never happen. By doing that, at the very least you would be censoring free speech. It would be like stopping all television broadcasts or newspaper deliveries. Sure, he may have the power, but it will never be wielded.

Never?

Ask this guy:

He sure didn't have a problem shutting down newspapers.

Yeah he also invaded his own country and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths to preserve an ideal that half the country didn't subscribe to. Real yardstick of freedom, that one.

Don't you have to pull like 7 of them offline to get the internet to stop working? I could be wrong, and I'm sure I'm working off older info here...

Doubt it. There's just under 200 actual root servers out there. While I doubt that a single one could manage to keep up with load (which is mostly malformed requests), I'm sure that even a minority of root servers could keep up with traffic for a while.